Roland's RD2000 stage keyboard (which has been around for quite some time) has over 1000 patches.

I own the Fantom and something about the Roland sound engines are harsh and hurt my ears. I compared all boards using $4000 headphones. Yes I have over 4K voices in that synth and it's easy to use. Yamaha beats them in sound quality and Roland beats them in UI and quantity but of course this is much newer than Montage. Montage 2 will beat it since they have had lots of time to study it. The Fantom copied the Montage and now vice versa probably. Each one-upping the other. The Fantom can internally play all 16 voices whereas the Montage depending on the voice complexity only 8 or less. I think once it would only play 3 voices maximum when I combine the most complex ones. Pretty underpowered and MODX can only be much worse. I would use the MIDI cable as a jumper to play more voices at once.

Does anyone know whether the RD sounds any better than the Fantom? The surface controls look almost the same as the Fantom. Is it only available in 88 keys? That's dumb because many people don't need that many keys.

Wasn't suggesting using an RD2000. Only presenting there's an example of Stage keyboards in the wild that have "a bunch" of sounds vs the more limited approach.

In other words, other than tradition there is no barrier to having a large selection of sounds in stage keyboards. Whatever user interface challenges are associated with a more limited display of stage keyboards can be overcome with past proven solutions. I don't think the answer has to be to provide a relatively huge screen.

[quotePost id=121295]because no one could figure it out.[/quotePost]
The MODX is the first synth I ever bought and I figured it out just fine. Tons of tutorials on this site, the Music Prodiction Guide, the Tech Talks... one can absolutely learn these instruments by himself without much trouble. And I do happen to think the UX is absolutely decent.
Can it be improved? Totally, by a huge amount and I'm sure something made today would be better than what they did 7 years ago. But still, for what it is, is perfectly fine and does the job pretty well (and I imagine the Montage with the buttons on the right is much better).
And then there's the John Melas' tools, which make editing faster than a lot of softsynths (including HALion and its implementation of FMX).

I definitely don't think the Montage/MODX are too complex. They are as complex as they need to be in order to do as much.
An elaborate softsynth workstation like Falcon or HALion or Omnisphere is just as complex, same goes for a DAW.
And these beasts are at the same time a DAW of sorts, a couple of synths and elaborate MIDI controllers.

Yeah I wasn't going to buy the Roland unless someone told be the sounds are much better than on Fantom AND they had a 61. Same technology so I'm sure it's mostly identical. They call it "V" for virtual but nothing sounds as good as the real thing and never will. It you need or perfer electronic sounds then Roland is great and endless and simple and awesome and powerful and fun and many people like it. I hope the Montage 2 works like that does, more like CK actually, because too much complexity is a problem for some. Like analog machines every dang dial was on the surface and you could change it in real time in seconds. That makes playing fun, not like menus. Those dials and sliders and switches cost a lot of money verse a menu with 100 buried functions. I think Yamaha is heading more toward one-to-one functionality but having both under on hood is still an awesome thought.

Vital, a free VST, is better than any modern digital hardware synth.

Once you start getting fussy about sounds, you gotta look at premium VSTs, and then you'll find Uhe's Diva and Arturia's Pigments - both blow the doors off hardware synths, in two different directions.

Diva is a better analogue. Pigments is a better digital future.

Why is this important?

Because the Montage and MODX can use sample sets with four velocities and a dozen pitch divisions, rendered out by these synths. So you can make exactly the sound you want and then "print it" to your Montage/MODX via SampleRobot.

[quotePost id=121295]Why can't we have a stage board with one-to-one UI relationship and also have 1000 best voices covering all the bases? Probably price[/quotePost]
I think it's mostly about interface. It's awkward to navigate 1000+ voices without a touchscreen and/or lots of category/sub-category buttons, or a menu-diving system, and these boards are all about instant and simple access without any of that. You can buy an MX with over 1000 voices for quite a bit less than a CK, and they tried to make it simple, but it's still not as fast and simple to use as a CK, even though it does less than a CK does.

As an aside, one of the things I actually dislike about the Fantom-0 is, too many patches. There is so much of everything, but so many are really just very subtle variations of others, and so many are not named in any way to help you distinguish them.

[quotePost id=121305]
As an aside, one of the things I actually dislike about the Fantom-0 is, too many patches. There is so much of everything, but so many are really just very subtle variations of others, and so many are not named in any way to help you distinguish them.
[/quotePost]

MODX/Montage guitars come to mind...

I've had the CK for a few days and it's definitely simple, instant and wider selection and not too many subtle changes but there are some typically 4 or 5 in a row that sound almost identical. For some it sounds like they spread the samples for a wider soundstage. YC has the same piano but CK will have 6 different variations of that same piano such as "stereo" "mono" "bright" "soft" then a combination of "stereo bright" or "Mono soft" etc. etc. So these are physically different samples but why go to all that trouble? We have the capability to tweak the one sample using EG or Filter etc. so isn't this just wasting space for other waveforms that aren't included? Seems unnecessary but on the data sheet it feels impressive.

Overall I like the CK for a companion and it fills in a lot of AWM2 holes in the YC that shouldn't really be there. The YC should have had real choirs, pipes & other organs, more guitars & electric, orchestra, more combinations options like CK does etc. If you can't physically layer more than 2 voices that's why a single combo makes perfect sense. Originally it only had (2) like a piano and synth. So CK adds a third non-organ voice plus adds a few more combo voices for greater orchestration if required. This should have been an obvious inclusion since YC dropped the third voice option. Sometimes I wonder why the obvious isn't obvious to Yamaha.

The FM organ on YC is cool except I need to be able to take advantage of it and not have it automatically sustain while holding down keys. Because that makes it behave like an organ and I don't want an organ, I want an FM layer that fades away or drops out. Else it still plays like an organ which isn't the intent with FM 4,5,6. Only the percussion operator allows the sound to drop out which doesn't offer much on its own. They need to add a full percussion mode to the whole organ section with 2 or 3 options for cutoff.

Perhaps because YC has FM capabilities Yamaha figured that they would add a lot of FM voices eventually like with the last update which was nice but nothing can replace a real slide guitar or actual choir. They added those 2 buzzing choir voices to YC and an FM I think but not a pure choir like CK which has about 3 ooh, aah & choir 2. So they went to that trouble but selected the wrong ones. Always, always go with purest first. I do love that CK Hawaiian guitar I have to use as a slide or pedal steel. The SKpro has a slide that is fantastic and so I layered those two and that was really nice sounding. There's another CK patch called "Quartet" that's really good. When you pull up a voice that you can't stop playing you know you found a good one. Not sure if that came from Montage or CP.

I've even enjoyed the sampled organs some are really fun. Yamaha did some good work improving YC, took a long time, and for free so buying the CK as a supplement doesn't bother me too much. It does turn the YC into a 6 voice machine.

Does anyone know if the CK is voice expandable? I assume it has more space but I'm not sure that they have stated this specifically. I'll have to search for that. I see It only says "new functions" and "improved operability".

[quotePost id=121308]For some it sounds like they spread the samples for a wider soundstage. YC has the same piano but CK will have 6 different variations of that same piano such as "stereo" "mono" "bright" "soft" then a combination of "stereo bright" or "Mono soft" etc. etc. So these are physically different samples but why go to all that trouble? We have the capability to tweak the one sample using EG or Filter etc. so isn't this just wasting space for other waveforms that aren't included? [/quotePost]
What makes you think they're different waveforms? It seems to me they would almost certainly be the same set of CFX samples, processed differently. No additional sample memory required.

As for creating your own similar variations via EG/filter tweaks, etc., three issues (at least):
... the board doesn't necessarily provide user accessible controls for all the tweaks they can do under the hood (e.g. there are no user-available tweaks to alter the stereo spread of the samples)
... the average user doesn't know how to get sound X out of sound Y to begin with
... any user-customized sounds can only be stored in Live Sets, not as Voices, which means you don't have the ability to quickly and easily combine those sounds with others

[quotePost id=121308]Does anyone know if the CK is voice expandable? I assume it has more space but I'm not sure that they have stated this specifically. [/quotePost]
Unlike when they released the YC/CP, they have not promoted this as a platform that they will be updating with new/additional sounds and capabilities. So at the least, no promises. While it's not impossible, I would not expect new voices.

Yes, true and also sad that if I wanted Piano "A" to be tweaked 10 ways and save each of those 10 I'd have to occupy 10 slots of a liveset or save to an external drive. That's a negative even though we have so many possibilities including effects etc. I'm not sure what all possible combinations are but infinite yet it's lost unless you occupy a live set position. Theoretically I could have one voice or group of 3 saved 160 different ways and then no other slots available. That wasn't thought through too well but I think the SKpro has that full capability however it doesn't have all the surface interface options. There's a trade off. Say I wanted to create an overdrive organ from sampled organ "A" and then save it. I can but then it's a live set and not a modified voice. Would have been cool if you could extract a voice out of a live set once modified and save it as a new voice. Even if you could do that to a limited number of voice it would have been convenient. Would have complicated the design but maybe next generation.

[quotePost id=121318]
What makes you think they're different waveforms? It seems to me they would almost certainly be the same set of CFX samples, processed differently. No additional sample memory required.

[quotePost id=121308]Does anyone know if the CK is voice expandable? I assume it has more space but I'm not sure that they have stated this specifically. [/quotePost]
[/quotePost]

Definitely different presets based upon the same waveforms. Yamaha does this all the time. It's a good thing, too, on what is basically a preset-only instrument. (Yeah, I know there is a leetle bit of sound editing...)

Personally, this is why I prefer a keyboard like MODX/Montage with deep editing. And the ability to add new waveforms and voices. Yeah, it means learning the keyboard in depth and experimenting. However, in the end, ya get what ya want without waiting for Yamaha to add it for you. 🙂

Even though MODX is front panel widget poor WRT CK, I'll take MODX knowing that I can create/produce 98%+ of the sounds in the CK and then some.

That's not to put the CK or its users down. I'm sure Yamaha will sell zillions of 'em at those price points.

All the best -- pj

[quotePost id=121320]Theoretically I could have one voice or group of 3 saved 160 different ways and then no other slots available. [/quotePost]
If you need dozens and dozens of variations of basically the same sound... this probably isn't the board for you. This board is about simplicity, it's not going to give you the flexibility of a MODX/Montage. People may wish for more than 160 Live Sets, but without some kind of search interface and/or some kind of alternate mechanism to navigate besides endlessly scrolling , I think that could become as much hindrance as benefit. That said, I saw that John Melas was in their CK introductory video, so I assume a CK editor/librarian is coming, which may make it easy to create different sets of 160 Live Sets you could load in for different projects.

[quotePost id=121320]I think the SKpro has that full capability however it doesn't have all the surface interface options.[/quotePost]And the Hammond's patch management interface is a mess. Probably the worst thing about the board.

[quotePost id=121320]Would have been cool if you could extract a voice out of a live set once modified and save it as a new voice. [/quotePost]
Although you can't save it as a new voice, you can extract a voice out of a live set and save it in a new live set.

My Harley analogy, some owners want to spend all day polishing and tuning it (Montage/MODX) while others want to ride it all day (YC,CP,CK) while still others spend their time half and half (SKpro) generally speaking. An oversimplification but makes a point. I'd say when I was 20 to 30 I could have gladly dissected the Montage. At over 50 I don't care to. Time management and attention span thing. As time becomes more valuable you adjust accordingly, also generally speaking. For example I have 6 things to do including running my business and family of 9 stuff. I have 30 minutes to relax and play. I do not want to spend 20 minutes programming a synth and only playing for 10. When I was younger I had months with nothing to do.

[quotePost id=121328]An oversimplification but makes a point. [/quotePost]
It doesn't.

People buy the Montage to play it, first and foremost.
It's not an end in itself, but a pro level instrument for pro musicians.

Your perspective as a hobbyist who doesn't have time is just that, and it only applies to your particular case.

It's also false that the Montage requires 20 min tweaking vs 10 min playing.

You can very well use it just as a basic rompler.
Big touch screen, Category Search, Live Sets... probably one of the easiest boards to use if you just want to find a sound, load it and start playing.
Easy splits and layers right on the Performance home screen.

Deep editability is a bonus but not a usage requirement.